The collapse of the World Trade Center was caught on a seismograph from Columbia University's Palisades,NY branch. The anomaly is in between the plane hitting and the building falling. The time on the graph coincides with the events that day . There were 3 large spikes...one from the plane hitting, one from an unknown source and finally the last spike showing that the building fell. So what may I ask was the middle spike? There were molten pools of steel at the base of the building where the WTC meets the bedrock. How could that be? Regular fires ,including jet fuel do not burn that hot. Truly a riddle.

This link, from another thread, provides the information refuting these claims.

Popular Science: Debunking the Myths

Essentially, the graphs are being shown deceitfully, using the incorrect time span in order to make the spikes appear significant. According to Arthur Lerner-Lam, one of the university seismologists "There is no scientific basis for the conclusion that explosions brought down the towers. That representation of our work is categorically incorrect and not in context."

In regards to the melted steel, the jet fuel only began the fire. The combustible materials within the tower itself, including rugs, curtains, furniture, and paper, caused the fires to burn into the +1800 degree range, hot enough to completely melt steel. Incidentally, this is hardly a riddle to people familiar with fires. Melted steel is not uncommon in commercial areas.

The guy who told the press of that... the guy experienced in demolishing buildings ALSO said the same thing aquatus said about it.

I read the e-mails from aquatus and stellar and I'm intrigued by something...the time on the seismograph. You would think that as a scientific device...the thing would have been working properly! Who or what kind of sicko would be decietful and lie about the times? So up until 9-11 the seismograph worked properly? Something sounds fishy here. As far as taking the demolishion crews word for the molten pools of steel... they sure got rid of all the WTC steel in a hurry. It was shipped to Indonesia. If you two are fine with the answers you gave me then so be it but there are other things about 9-11 that don't make sense either.

what should they have done with it?

let it sit around for a few months just so the tinfoil hat wearers could come up with some other conspiracy where the metal was irradiated and that the government is leaving it there just to steralise the people...

And beyond 9-11 as well. The seismograph was working properly. And it took the correct readings. What happened was that Alex Jones, the founder of the seismic conspiracy, took a reading that spans thirty minutes, and only shows the 8-10 seconds during which the collapse actually occured. Of course, when you look at anything in detail, the deviations are going to seem significant, however when they are taken into context of the whole time span, you find that they are little more than regular blips. It is similar to Charles Berlitz's claim to have mapped a pyramid at the bottom of the Bermuda Triangle using a sonar. His graph certainly looks like a proper pyramid. However, the time span, which indicates how fast the ship is moving, was fiddled with, and so what looks like a pyramid on the graph, is actually nothing more than a 1 foot rise over the span of a hundred feet.

As to what kind of sicko would do this? Well, there are people who simply need something to believe-or rather, disbelieve-in. There are those who have to have an enemy, and an obvious enemy isn't enough, isn't worthwhile. No, these people must have an enemy who is beyond the pale, who has powers and an agenda so subtle and pervasive that they represent not simply a danger to a few, but to the planet, and all humanity. In short, there are those who have a hidden longing to be the super-hero who stands in the way of the super-villain, with the world as we know it as the stakes.



The steel was shipped to Indonesia? Last I heard, It was being melted as scrap in the New York Steel Works. It stood in the scrapyard for over a year prior to that. Why would it be shipped to Indonesia? Even if it was, what would the question be? What would be the signifigance?

i am by no means an expert

what does it take to make this thing go off ?

could it be an inner section of the building collapsed 1st and that gave the reading ?

To my understanding (I haven't read the seismological report, just seen the graphs), the areas that are being alleged as being explosion points are actually the failure points of the supporting structure. When those gave way, the tremor of the structure falling was recorded as a spike. When the falling structure fell approximately ten feet onto the floor below, it registered the second spike, which also signaled the main tremors (the rumble of the tower falling) from the whole episode.

bold faced lie! show us proof that alex jones made any comments on the seismic anomolies-every person that has posted on this thread so far are disinformation masters-they never include links to verify their statements and love to put words in peoples mouths-the anomly lies in the time it took the towers to fall-it was a freefall and had the towers collapsed due to the weakening of the concrete and steel support beems there would have been resistance on the way down-the main supports had been attacked with special demolition explosives-there is no other explanation that can be offered for the pools of molten concrete and steel that were found up to five weeks after 9/11 and anyone who tells you that furniture debri caused the fires that created this evidence is dillusional

Funny... seeing as the man that went public with the "pools of molted steel" was indeed a demolition expert, and even said that it's to be expected and is no evidence of the use of explosives.

There are many anomalies concerning 9-11. The big one for me is the FBI not releasing Virginia DOT (dept.of transportation) camera footage and not releasing the voice cockpit recordings. To me this would be real evidence. Now the trickery comes when the FBI starts manufacturing other types of so called "evidence" that is virtually impossible to believe like for an example finding the stewardesses hands bound in all of the WTC debris or the passport of one of the hijackers or how about finding the DNA evidence at the pentagon crash? Virtually impossible considering the heat. My point: Outlandish "evidence" replacing concrete evidence means they are hiding something. So I'm not too willing to dismiss the seismic evidence...it's pretty basic stuff. However, thank you all for your time to post your thoughts.

Proof that Alex Jones made any comments on seismic anomalies? He runs a web site with an entire section devoted to the WTC bomb scenario. You can find the seismic article in there. Here's your link:
9/11 Archive: Bombs in the Buildings



Okay, then, before I answer this, why don't you tell us exactly how much time it would have taken between the first spike, signifying the start of the collapse, to the second spike, signifying it's striking the floor beneath it? After you tell us that, all we would need to do is consult the seismic chart, and see if that is what it is telling us, or not. That's is fair, is it not? I wouldn't want to be accused of spreading disinformation, or anything.



So you are saying that there is no way that a high rise fire can generate the amount of heat required to completely melt steel? Do I have that right?

went public? the pools located in the basements were holding up the clean-up they were still molten after five weeks-you cant hide a fact like that! you know youve read my links to news articles reporting what i have stated-all you did was prove i was right by not posting a link to your propaganda lies


check your own links man! there is not one seismic article-just numerous references to firefighters and reporters reporting the sounds of additional blasts


no but the company that certified the steel for wtc states exactly that!
it takes 3000degrees to melt the steel at wtc
**************************************
The collapse of the WTC

by Kevin Ryan
Underwriters Laboratories
Thursday, Nov 11, 2004

The following letter was sent today by Kevin Ryan of Underwriters Laboratories to Frank Gayle of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). Underwriters Laboratories is the company that certified the steel componets used in the constuction of the World Trade Center towers. The information in this letter is of great importance.

Dr. Gayle,

Having recently reviewed your team's report of 10/19/04, I felt the need to contact you directly.

As I'm sure you know, the company I work for certified the steel components used in the construction of the WTC buildings. In requesting information from both our CEO and Fire Protection business manager last year, I learned that they did not agree on the essential aspects of the story, except for one thing - that the samples we certified met all requirements. They suggested we all be patient and understand that UL was working with your team, and that tests would continue through this year. I'm aware of UL's attempts to help, including performing tests on models of the floor assemblies. But the results of these tests appear to indicate that the buildings should have easily withstood the thermal stress caused by pools of burning jet fuel.

There continues to be a number of "experts" making public claims about how the WTC buildings fell. One such person, Dr. Hyman Brown from the WTC construction crew, claims that the buildings collapsed due to fires at 2000F melting the steel (1). He states "What caused the building to collapse is the airplane fuel…burning at 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The steel in that five-floor area melts." Additionally, the newspaper that quotes him says "Just-released preliminary findings from a National Institute of Standards and Technology study of the World Trade Center collapse support Brown’s theory."

We know that the steel components were certified to ASTM E119. The time temperature curves for this standard require the samples to be exposed to temperatures around 2000F for several hours. And as we all agree, the steel applied met those specifications. Additionally, I think we can all agree that even un-fireproofed steel will not melt until reaching red-hot temperatures of nearly 3000F (2). Why Dr. Brown would imply that 2000F would melt the high-grade steel used in those buildings makes no sense at all.

The results of your recently published metallurgical tests seem to clear things up (3), and support your team's August 2003 update as detailed by the Associated Press (4), in which you were ready to "rule out weak steel as a contributing factor in the collapse." The evaluation of paint deformation and spheroidization seem very straightforward, and you noted that the samples available were adequate for the investigation. Your comments suggest that the steel was probably exposed to temperatures of only about 500F (250C), which is what one might expect from a thermodynamic analysis of the situation.

However the summary of the new NIST report seems to ignore your findings, as it suggests that these low temperatures caused exposed bits of the building’s steel core to "soften and buckle." (5) Additionally this summary states that the perimeter columns softened, yet your findings make clear that "most perimeter panels (157 of 160) saw no temperature above 250C." To soften steel for the purposes of forging, normally temperatures need to be above1100C (6). However, this new summary report suggests that much lower temperatures were be able to not only soften the steel in a matter of minutes, but lead to rapid structural collapse.

This story just does not add up. If steel from those buildings did soften or melt, I’m sure we can all agree that this was certainly not due to jet fuel fires of any kind, let alone the briefly burning fires in those towers. That fact should be of great concern to all Americans. Alternatively, the contention that this steel did fail at temperatures around 250C suggests that the majority of deaths on 9/11 were due to a safety-related failure. That suggestion should be of great concern to my company.

There is no question that the events of 9/11 are the emotional driving force behind the War on Terror. And the issue of the WTC collapse is at the crux of the story of 9/11. My feeling is that your metallurgical tests are at the crux of the crux of the crux. Either you can make sense of what really happened to those buildings, and communicate this quickly, or we all face the same destruction and despair that come from global decisions based on disinformation and “chatter”.

Thanks for your efforts to determine what happened on that day. You may know that there are a number of other current and former government employees that have risked a great deal to help us to know the truth. I've copied one of these people on this message as a sign of respect and support. I believe your work could also be a nucleus of fact around which the truth, and thereby global peace and justice, can grow again. Please do what you can to quickly eliminate the confusion regarding the ability of jet fuel fires to soften or melt structural steel.

1. http://www.boulderweekly.com/archive/102104/coverstory.html 2. CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics, 61st edition, pg D-187 3. http://wtc.nist.gov/media/P3MechanicalandM...ysisofSteel.pdf 4. http://www.voicesofsept11.org/archive/911ic/082703.php 5. http://wtc.nist.gov/media/NCSTACWTCStatusFINAL101904WEB2.pdf (pg 11) 6. http://www.forging.org/FIERF/pdf/ffaaMacSleyne.pdf

Kevin Ryan

Site Manager Environmental Health Laboratories A Division of Underwriters Laboratories
http://www.septembereleventh.org/newsarchi...-11-11-ryan.php
*****************************************************
just in case
**********
"MOLTEN STEEL"

In the basements of the collapsed towers, where the 47 central support columns connected with the bedrock, hot spots of "literally molten steel" were discovered more than a month after the collapse. Such persistent and intense residual heat, 70 feet below the surface, could explain how these crucial structural supports failed.

Peter Tully, president of Tully Construction of Flushing, New York, told AFP that he saw pools of "literally molten steel" at the World Trade Center. Tully was contracted on September 11 to remove the debris from the site.

Tully called Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition, Inc. (CDI) of Phoenix, Maryland, for consultation about removing the debris. CDI calls itself "the innovator and global leader in the controlled demolition and implosion of structures."

Loizeaux, who cleaned up the bombed Federal Building in Oklahoma City, arrived on the WTC site two days later and wrote the clean-up plan for the entire operation.

AFP asked Loizeaux about the report of molten steel on the site. "Yes," he said, "hot spots of molten steel in the basements." These incredibly hot areas were found "at the bottoms of the elevator shafts of the main towers, down seven [basement] levels," Loizeaux said. The molten steel was found "three, four, and five weeks later, when the rubble was being removed,"

http://www.global-conspiracies.com/21715.htm

http://www.serendipity.li/wot/bollyn2.htm

dmgspcat: Nice work sunofone. Thanks for taking the time to do the research. I think I see your stance on the whole 9-11 issue very similar to mine. And not without good reason.

Ah well, it was fun while it lasted

Yes, as in he told the media about it.



Huh? I've actually posted a link, to the very SOURCE of your article, that demonstrated that he said that the pool of molten steel was NOT caused by an explosive but my other burning objects.



Funny you dont post the 2nd paragraph under that:

"Loizeaux told AFP that the steel-melting fires were fueled by "paper, carpet and other combustibles packed down the elevator shafts by the tower floors as they 'pancaked' into the basement.""

There were two towers that collapsed. So seismic spike one=plane, seismic spike 2=north tower and seismic spike 3=south tower, Yes???
This means that Atta didn't have any help from insiders in bringing those towers down. While the act was reprehensible the execution was awesome(and only cost $150K) Shame the man didn't direct his energies and intelligence to better things.

flying a plane into a building is intelligent ?

the kamakazies were genius ?

No, but conceiving of the plan was.

It's not real investigation to discover a potential anomaly in one theory, and then declare that it makes your theory the truth by default. The buildings failed in such a way perfectly understandable by metallurgists and structural engineers. In fact it is a study point in some engineering schools now. The vast majority of experts in demolitions and structural engineering see no problem with how the building failed; they understand how they were designed and built and how they would fail.

Since such evidence is available for the prevailing theory, those of you who want to challenge have the burden of proof. Suggesting a demolitions theory, for example, would require one who understands how demolitions are performed to explain just how those charges could have been placed and by whom with nobody ever seeing, or even better provide testimony from a worker involved in the laying of the demolition charges.

That would be just a start. The problem is that any time ideological bias is combined with investigation the result is always skewed.

nothing but a bunch of excuses-you "really" sound like the people who think OJ was innocent-its really pathetic-

from the pipeline in afg "to"

the 280plus billion in defense contracts "to"

silversteins ridiculously coincidental bad business deal turn largest insurance payoff in history "to"

wtc bld 7(c'mon yall) "to"

bush's secret service doing nothing for 20 min! in the face of a percieved declaration of war and looming terrorist threat? "to"

the pentagon not being able to defend itself 48 min after it was known we were under certain terrorist attack "to"

the "anthrax" incidents "to"

condi warning mayor brown not to fly "to"

saddam and bin laden being known cia "assets" "to"

the bush's links to the carlyle group as well as his partnership in the largest constuction company in the middle east with bin laden sr "to"

the 100,000 that was wired to atta and the meeting on 9/11 between bush sr and bin ladens older brother "to"

the patriot acts and HR418 sec.102 or Real ID act(look it up youll love it) "to"

bush stating on the record "we were not aware of the attempts to use airplanes as weapons" when "coincidentally" cheney was supervising the execution of the very same scenario "ON" 9/11 "CHANCE?" "to"

well you get the point by now but i could go on!
-like those that support OJ there really seems to be no reason for you to not accept the evidence but you do it anyway

Edit; removed redundant quote


holy cow
1st of all take a breath

2nd you have any proof whatso ever of these claims ?

that we thought it was a decleration of war ? that seems ridiculous
it was a few passenger planes not fighter jets and parachuters
this wasnt "Red Dawn"

But wait, you still haven't answered the questions that have been posed to you. Wouldn't all the irrelevant statements you just made in lieu of answering the questions be considered excuses? We are, after all, focusing on the seismic evidence here.



He didn't provide a link, but he did provide a paragraph from the exact same person during the exact same conversation which refutes the claims that you said this person was making. If you are claiming that an expert is supporting your position, when you omit what the same person said not two paragraphs later which refutes your claim, wouldn't that be considered a propagandistic lie?



Oh, for heaven's sake, the lengths you will go to to avoid something! I gave you the link to the article about debunking the planes myths and you demanded more. I gave you the link to the page of the guy who started the whole bomb rumor and you claimed he did not such thing and it was all a lie. I then linked the actual page with all the stories, and you outright claimed it was missing. It is there, I just looked at it again to make sure. Man, for a person who keeps accusing others of blindly accepting stories, you certainly don't seem to show much willingness to check into things yourself.

So, to sum up, questions that you have avoided:





I actually read and understood the article you posted. Did you? My question still stands. The article focuses only on the heat generated by burning jet fuel. Either you are avoiding the specific question I asked, which is about more than just jet fuel, or you hoped to divert attention away from the main question (refer to "excuses" above).

Those are just my questions. I won't comment on the others you've avoided.

dmgspycat, don't kid yourself. Not a whole lot of research going on here, on sun's part. Lot of diversions, but not a whole lot of research.

This is fun! I usually avoid conspiracy argument, but this, man, fish in a barrel

Well, there you go. The whole world is a conspiracy. I choked on my sandwich a few minutes ago... it was the US Secret Service trying to silence me!

Notice how Sunofone is beating around the bush... avoiding answering aquatus' question... hmm, I wonder why?

It was probably the damn reptilians again.lol
These conspiracy people must have miserable lives believing in this stuff.

let me take you step by step through this thread since your attention span and ability to stick to the topic and quote verifiable sources is zero-here is my first post in this thread

my first post from this thread

i was initially exposing the lack of credibilty in your post by stating quite clearly that alex jones has never posted an article using the seismic data and challenged you to link directly to it-i also pre-countered the the conclusion of the "neocons own corrupt demolition expert Loizeaux because i knew i was using an inteview of his describing what he encountered during clean-up(evidence which cannot be denied)where he "decietfully" conjured up a preposterous excuse for them(pools of molten steel) which is actually laughable-to demonstrate i included the article from the company that certified the actual steel used in the construction of the wtc -after which began your sidestepping and dancing around inquiries


proof of your dancing and jibberish in avoiding my initial statements-just go back and look for yourself if you dont believe these quotes

more jibberish


to be fair and to help clear up some confusion (not that i should have to but since you kids are so mentally deficient i will help you out)ill go ahead and bring up the fact that i never posted or based any arguments in this thread on the seismic data-thats your disinformation and disinfo strategy-the person that released that info a long time ago re-negged and it was "definitely not" alex jones-which is all i was ever saying

http://www.infowars.com/print/Sept11/pp_fdny.htm



You asked for evidence of AJ and the seismic activity? So.. now, wheres your evidence that Loizeaux is a corrupt demolition expert?

Im sorry, but you simply cant call Loizeaux a credible witness, take part of what he says as the truth, and then call whatever disagrees with your fantasy a lie.



Yes, umm... so? Loizeaux, a demolition expert, never made the claim that steel melts at lower temperature than it actually does... he said that all the crap that fell down that caught fire would burn with a temp high enough to melt the steel.



Why dont you answer his question? you're the one dancing around it.

i found this info dunno if it helps close the explosives idea or not

seems from burning wood you get creosote which burns at over 2000 degrees F

steel melts at 2600 degrees F

so id say the combustables in the wreckage could have melted the steel

Don't Let Creosote Build Up In The Chimney

Creosote is a highly combustible substance which condenses in liquid form as wood exhaust cools in the chimney, and then solidifies as it dries. If ignited, creosote can burn for days at temperatures exceeding 2,000 degrees, which is hot enough to destroy the chimney and ignite surrounding combustibles. Creosote is very caustic; if allowed to accumulate, it will significantly shorten the lifetime of the stovepipe and chimney. A seasoned-wood fire that is given enough oxygen for proper combustion will reduce creosote formation in two ways, by consuming more of the wood gases while at the same time sending more heat up the chimney to reduce flue gas cooling.

http://www.i4at.org/surv/woodburn.htm the above is from that link

i would also imagine the immense pressure from the collapse would have helped raise the temp somewhat, all that energy, some of it would have had to have been turned into heat.

And, since in your step-by-step description, you somehow neglected to show my responses, I will fill them in for you. (Oh, no, did Sunofone actually selectively quote to promote his own views? Goodness, giving only information that supports your side and ignoring opposing info, why, that's almost like propaganda, isn't it?)



And I replied he had, and provided a link to it, and the article was and remains there (it is called Silverstein, FDNY Decided to 'Pull WTC 7': An In-Depth Analysis (written by) Paul Joseph Watson/Alex Jones and you said . So, does this mean that, when you demand links, you do not bother to read them?



What initial statement am I avoiding? You asked for a link to an article posted by Alex Jones, I gave you one (it is still there, you can go check it), and moved on to my next point, which was how you brought forth an expert witness, quoted only the part of what he said that could be construed to agree with your point, but left out the part that inequivocally disagreed with your point. Am I missing a statement somewhere? Which one am I avoiding?



Oh, thank you so much, because, you know, nobody here ever thinks we make the slightest bit of sense



Ours? The seismic data is the entire point of this thread! The title is Replying to 9-11 conspiracy/seismic evidence?. It was brought up by dmgspycat, who says that she agrees with you! Does that make it her disinformation and disinfo?

Tell you what, here's my little step-by-step of description
I gave a link to the article where the theory is explained in greater detail: Popular Science: Debunking the 9/11 Myths

I claimed:

You came in and claimed:

To which I gave you the link you requested: 9/11 Archive: Bombs in the Building Which is a column run by Alex Jones, and contains the article with the seismic claim. Then, I requested that you provide support for your "the anomly lies in the time it took the towers to fall" idea by answering a very straightforward question which could be easily confirmed with the exact same chart this very thread is referring to. And, finally, I asked you if you believed that "there is no way that a high rise fire can generate the amount of heat required to completely melt steel?", to which you replied that you did not believe that, but you had another expert witness who did, and you proceeded to post a story which did not, at any time, mention anything other than burning jet fuel, when you yourself originally brought up the point that we were talking about, which was

Your next post was a blitzkrieg of conspiracy arguments, none of which was relevant to the topic of the thread, which is still Seismic Evidence, which many people here are posting arguments, links, and support for, and which you somehow do not seem to see. Can you at least tell me if you can see the name "Alex Jones" on the By-line of the article I named above, in the Link that I gave?



Alex Jones shared the by-line with Paul Watson; that makes the article his as much as Watson's. Have your cake and eat it too, eh?

So, can you support your claim that the seismic data was showing the time it took for a demolition, not the time it took for a regular collapse? Or is it nothing more than talk? I have given you a very simple way of showing that your idea could work, all you have to do is respond to it.

Incidentally, this has been loads of fun, but I will be gone for a week, so unfortunately, I won't be responding here anymore (I can only imaging that this thread will be tired out before I return. Conspiracies can only run in so many circles before running out of reasonable doubt.)

I notice this topic got pretty competitive, that's ok because I like to hear from naysayers too. Many people could not believe that the Military would attack its own soil and blame it on someone else. It was done before under Operation Northwoods...look it up. Many people would not believe that there could exist a conspiracy of these kinds of proportions without someone getting caught. Well I give you the Kennedy assassination. No one caught to date except the scapegoat of course. Just ask yourself...who benefitted the most from 9-11? The Muslims? No. The Jihadi's? No. The Arab world in general? No.
So who or what then benefited from the events that day? Who got their policies passed? Who got their war? Who got to divert trillions in surplus to trillions in deficit? What oil companies were lying in wait to pounce on the Middle East? Could Pres. Bush have masterminded this? LOL ...he can barely speak coherantly...but he can keep a secret. Isn't it ironic how the Bin Laden family is in the Carlysle Group(they buy up defense firms) with George Bush Sr.? A little too close dont you think?
So when you explain away all the 9-11 events as a self evident terrorist attack your only source for everything that you believe about the event was disseminated through the White House. Even if the info. came from the FBI it was still handled by WH staff first. So bottom line is that you naysayers trust Ashcroft and Bush to give you the truth? Or even worse...the news? I laugh at the thought. The shoe just doesn't fit.

nice work i have to admit i have never seen the paul watson paragraph you pointed out but in my defense i need to point to the references you made to the seismic data of aj/pw being the same as the people who misread the graph and wrote a follow-up admiting their error-im not sure exactly who it was- i think it was the "911 lets roll" website but it surely wasnt aj/pw that misread the graph and was used as fodder for many debunkers-even though i had never seen that paragraph and you were right that aj/pw had posted a paragraph concerning the seismic charts(although you quoted them out of context) i am also correct in the fact that you are guilty of lumping the entire collection of conspiracy theories into one bunch and condemning the whole based on some miscalculations or purposely planted disinfo and blatantly and arrogantly "supporting OJ" so to speak as you ignore all the other available evidence

New Seismic Data Refutes Official WTC Explanation


By Christopher Bollyn Exclusive to American Free Press

Two unexplained "spikes" in the seismic record from Sept. 11 indicate huge bursts of energy shook the ground beneath the World Trade Center's twin towers immediately prior to the collapse. American Free Press has learned of pools of "molten steel" found at the base of the collapsed twin towers weeks after the collapse. Although the energy source for these incredibly hot areas has yet to be explained, New York seismometers recorded huge bursts of energy, which caused unexplained seismic "spikes" at the beginning of each collapse.

These spikes suggest that massive underground explosions may have literally knocked the towers off their foundations, causing them to collapse.

In the basements of the collapsed towers, where the 47 central support columns connected with the bedrock, hot spots of "literally molten steel" were discovered more than a month after the collapse. Such persistent and intense residual heat, 70 feet below the surface, in an oxygen starved environment, could explain how these crucial structural supports failed.

Peter Tully, president of Tully Construction of Flushing, N. Y., told AFP that he saw pools of "literally molten steel" at the World Trade Center.

Tully was contracted after the Sept. 11 tragedy to remove the debris from the site.

Tully called Mark Loizeaux, president of Controlled Demolition, Inc. (CDI) of Phoenix, Md., for consultation about removing the debris. CDI calls itself "the innovator and global leader in the controlled demolition and implosion of structures."

Loizeaux, who cleaned up the bombed Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, arrived at the WTC site two days later and wrote the clean-up plan for the entire operation.

AFP asked Loizeaux about the report of molten steel on the site.

"Yes," he said, "hot spots of molten steel in the basements."

These incredibly hot areas were found "at the bottoms of the elevator shafts of the main towers, down seven [basement] levels," Loizeaux said.

The molten steel was found "three, four, and five weeks later, when the rubble was being removed," Loizeaux said. He said molten steel was also found at 7 WTC, which collapsed mysteriously in the late afternoon.

Construction steel has an extremely high melting point of about 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit.

Asked what could have caused such extreme heat, Tully said, "Think of the jet fuel."

Loizeaux told AFP that the steel-melting fires were fueled by "paper, carpet and other combustibles packed down the elevator shafts by the tower floors as they 'pancaked' into the basement."

However, some independent investigators dispute this claim, saying kerosene-based jet fuel, paper, or the other combustibles normally found in the towers, cannot generate the heat required to melt steel, especially in an oxygen-poor environment like a deep basement.

Eric Hufschmid, author of a book about the WTC collapse, Painful Questions,* told AFP that due to the lack of oxygen, paper and other combustibles packed down at the bottom of elevator shafts would probably be "a smoky smoldering pile."

Experts disagree that jet-fuel or paper could generate such heat.

This is impossible, they say, because the maximum temperature that can be reached by hydrocarbons like jet-fuel burning in air is 1,520 degrees F. Because the WTC fires were fuel rich, as evidenced by the thick black smoke, it is argued that they did not reach this upper limit.

The hottest spots at the surface of the rubble, where abundant oxygen was available, were much cooler than the molten steel found in the basements.

Five days after the collapse, on Sept. 16, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) used an Airborne Visible/Infrared Imaging Spectrometer (AVIRIS) to locate and measure the site's hot spots.

Dozens of hot spots were mapped, the hottest being in the east corner of the South Tower where a temperature of 1,377 degrees F was recorded.

This is, however, less than half as hot at the molten steel in the basement.

The foundations of the twin towers were 70 feet deep. At that level, 47 huge box columns, connected to the bedrock, supported the entire gravity load of the structures. The steel walls of these lower box columns were four inches thick.

Videos of the North Tower collapse show its communication mast falling first, indicating that the central support columns must have failed at the very beginning of the collapse. Loizeaux told AFP, "Everything went simultaneously."

"At 10:29 the entire top section of the North Tower had been severed from the base and began falling down," Hufschmid writes. "If the first event was the falling of a floor, how did that progress to the severing of hundreds of columns?"

Asked if the vertical support columns gave way before the connections between the floors and the columns, Ron Hamburger, a structural engineer with the FEMA assessment team said, "That's the $64,000 question."

Loizeaux said, "If I were to bring the towers down, I would put explosives in the basement to get the weight of the building to help collapse the structure."

SEISMIC 'SPIKES'



Seismographs at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory in Palisades, N. Y., 21 miles north of the WTC, recorded strange seismic activity on Sept. 11 that has still not been explained.

While the aircraft crashes caused minimal earth shaking, significant earthquakes with unusual spikes occurred at the beginning of each collapse.



The Palisades seismic data recorded a 2.1 magnitude earthquake during the
10-second collapse of the South Tower at 9:59:04 and a 2.3 quake during the
8-second collapse of the North Tower at 10:28:31.

However, the Palisades seismic record shows that - as the collapses began - a huge seismic "spike" marked the moment the greatest energy went into the ground. The strongest jolts were all registered at the beginning of the collapses, well before the falling debris struck the Earth.

These unexplained "spikes" in the seismic data lend credence to the theory that massive explosions at the base of the towers caused the collapses.

A "sharp spike of short duration" is how seismologist Thorne Lay of University of California at Santa Cruz told AFP an underground nuclear explosion appears on a seismograph.

The two unexplained spikes are more than 20 times the amplitude of the other seismic waves associated with the collapses and occurred in the East-West seismic recording as the buildings began to fall.

Experts cannot explain why the seismic waves peaked before the towers actually hit the ground.

Asked about these spikes, seismologist Arthur Lerner-Lam, director of Columbia University's Center for Hazards and Risk Research told AFP, "This is an element of current research and discussion. It is still being investigated."

Lerner-Lam told AFP that a 10-fold increase in wave amplitude indicates a
100-fold increase in energy released. These "short-period surface waves," reflect "the interaction between the ground and the building foundation," according to a report from Columbia Earth Institute.

"The seismic effects of the collapses are comparable to the explosions at a gasoline tank farm near Newark on Jan. 7, 1983," the Palisades Seismology Group reported on Sept. 14, 2001.

One of the seismologists, Won-Young Kim, told AFP that the Palisades seismographs register daily underground explosions from a quarry 20 miles away.

These blasts are caused by 80,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate and cause local earthquakes between Magnitude 1 and 2. Kim said the 1993 truck-bomb at the WTC did not register on the seismographs because it was "not coupled" to the ground.

"Only a small fraction of the energy from the collapsing towers was converted into ground motion," Lerner-Lam said. "The ground shaking that resulted from the collapse of the towers was extremely small."

Last November, Lerner-Lam said: "During the collapse, most of the energy of the falling debris was absorbed by the towers and the neighboring structures, converting them into rubble and dust or causing other damage-but not causing significant ground shaking."

Evidently, the energy source that shook the ground beneath the towers was many times more powerful than the total potential energy released by the falling mass of the towers. The question is: What was that energy source?

Edit; removed redundant quote.

that was a great article dmg-please post the link-this is surely the article paul watson commented on and the quotes from Tully,the seismologists and Loizeaux are revealing-ill look for the report where another reporter wrote a piece on his theory of the data and based his outcome on a miscalculated graph timescale conversion which he had to recant

Can you please post your evidence that the steel melted due to fire? Unless you have performed a metallurgical study on the actual steel that was in the WTC you are merely speculating. According to the official NIST report, comisioned at a cost of $16 million which did have access to these steel samples, all the data they have so far released shows that the temperature of the core columns reached no more than 250 degrees C, way less than the critical 600 degrees C when steel can start to weaken.
I think it is the job of the government and its experts to prove their hypothesis - that fire caused the steel in the WTC to buckle after being weakened by fire. They have millions of dollars of budget to work with, and all the evidence in their possession, which we don't have. If, more than 3 years after 9/11 they have not done so - isn't it a little worrying, and strange?

NIST website